James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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This has got to be one of the most difficult books I have ever read. I’m having a hard time following the stream of consciousness style of writing Joyce uses to create the inner workings of Stephen Dedalus’s mind. It starts out with Stephen as a young boy, and his thoughts are random and choppy. There is very little description as to setting or other characters because the novel itself is all about Stephen’s coming of age.

Yet again, this is a book I’m reading for my upper level college course “The Novel”. I’m really not enjoying this class. I had gone into it hoping that I would become more familiar with and fall in love with new writers and books. What I’ve learned so far is that I really should just stick with the types of stories and writers that I know I love to read. Yes, these novels are great pieces of art, but that doesn’t mean I should lie and say, “oh god, what a wonderful book.” Yep… that would be a lie… because this one, in my own personal opinion.. is crap.

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Filed under Course Readings, Fiction